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QP45  .L524  1900   Does  science  need 


RECAP 


Does  Science  Need  Secrecy? 


ALBERT   LEFFINGWELL,   M.  D. 


WITH   STATEMENT 


CONCERNING   VIVISECTION  BY   PROF.   W.    T.    PORTER, 


K  KIM'.  I  NT  HP    FKOM    THE   "BOSTON     TRANSCRIPT.' 


PRINTED    FOR 

THE  AMERICAN  HUMANE   ASSOCIATION. 

1900. 


Columbia  Untoertfttp 
mtljfUlitpirflfttilfork 

College  of  pjjpjsicianis  anb  burgeons 

Hiferarp 


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in  2010  with  funding  from 

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http://www.archive.org/details/doesscienceneeds1900leff 


FIF  TEES  TH    THO  USA  Xli 


Does  Science  Need  Secrecy? 


ALBERT   LEFFINGWELL,   M.  D. 


WITH   STATEMENT 

CONCERNING  VIVISECTION  BY   PROF.   W.    T.   PORTER, 

REPRINTED   FROM   THE   "  BOSTON    TRANSCRIPT." 


PRINTED   FOB 

THE   AMERICAN  HUMANE   ASSOCIATION. 
1900. 


QP45- 
Woo 


INTRODUCTION. 


A  third  edition  of  this  pamphlet  having  been  called  for, 
bringing  its  circulation  up  to  fifteen  thousand,  an  opportunity 
is  afforded  for  a  brief  introduction. 

The  discerning  reader  cannot  fail  to  note  the  only  purpose 
of  this  essay.  In  no  sense  is  it  intended  as  a  discussion  of 
the  ethics  of  vivisection  or  as  a  denunciation  of  cruelty.  It 
is  simply  a  challenge.  It  denies  that  a  certain  manifesto, 
put  forth  by  six  of  the  leading  vivisectors  of  Harvard  Uni- 
versity, was,  —  what  it  claimed  to  be,  — •  "  a  plain  statement 
of  the  whole  truth."  These  eminent  scientists,  affirmed  of 
painful  vivisections  that  "  such  investigations  are  rare ;  no?ie 
such  have  been  made  in  Harvard  Medical  School  within  our 
knowledge."  That  assertion  was  either  true  or  false.  To 
prove  its  untruth  ;  to  demonstrate  beyond  question  that 
experiments  causing  some  degree  of  pain, —  and  occasionally 
prolonged  pain,  —  had  been  performed  by  some  of  the  very 
men  who  were  responsible  for  that  most  astounding  asser- 
tion, was  the  principal  object  of  the  following  pages.  The 
experiments  in  question  might  have  been  free  from  any  stigma 
of  cruelty;  they  might  have  been  entirely  justifiable;  but 
that  was  not  the  point  at  issue.  A  deliberate  statement  was 
made  to  the  public  that  no  painful  vivisections  had  been  per- 
formed in  the  Harvard  Medical  School ;  and  that  statement 
was  false. 

When  this  challenge  of  accuracy  first  appeared  in  the 
columns  of  The  Boston  Transcript,  it  was  confidently  ex- 
pected by  many  friends  of  the  institution  that  some  explan- 


4  Does.  Science  Need  Secrecy  ? 

ation  would  speedily  be  forthcoming  from  those  implicated  in 
putting  forth  that  surprising  manifesto.  But  days  and  weeks 
went  by  without  a  sign  ;  and  in  all  the  years  that  have  since 
elapsed,  no  reply  has  ever  been  made.  No  one  of  these  dis- 
tinguished scientists  has  since  come  forward,  again  to  affirm 
of  his  statement  that  it  was  "the  whole  truth,"  or  of  painful 
vivisections  that  "nonesuch  have  been  made  in  the  Har- 
vard Medical  School  within  our  knowledge." 

]t  is  a  somewhat  significant  fact  that  so  far  as  known,  the 
only  allusion  to  this  pamphlet  which  any  one  of  them  has 
ventured  to  make,  merely  serves  to  illustrate  the  theory  that 
the  habitual  practice  of  vivisection  dulls  the  sense  of  accu- 
rate perception  and  the  capacity  for  stating  facts.  In  notes 
to  a  published  address  delivered  in  1896  before  the  annual 
meeting  of  the  Massachusetts  Medical  Society,  Dr.  Henry 
P.  Bowditch  makes  a  brief  reference  to  the  experiments 
noted  on  page  19  of  this  pamphlet.  After  insisting  that 
certain  prolonged  electrical  stimulation  "could  not  by  any 
possibility  have  been  accompanied  by  any  sensation,"  he 
adds  : 

"  Even  Dr.  LefRngwell,  a  writer  who  is  compatively  reason- 
able in  his  opposition  to  vivisection,  in  a  recently  published 
pamphlet  entitled  "Does  science  need  secrecy?"  cites  these 
experiments  as  evidence  of  cruelty  practised  in  the  Harvard 
Medical  School." 

The  reader  of  these  pages  will  look  in  vain  for  any  proof 
of  this  charge.  Where,  in  this  pamphlet,  are  the  experiments 
of  Prof.  Bowditch  cited  "as  evidence  of  cruelty?"  The 
Harvard  professor  of  physiology  had  declared  with  some  of 
his  associates,  that  "  painful  vivisections "  were  rare,  and 
"  none  such "  had  been  performed  in  their  laboratories. 
Was  that  the  truth  ?  This  is  the  principal  question  touched. 
Professor  Bowditch  insists  that  his  "  stimulation  "  could  not 
have  occasioned  any  sensation.     What  of  that  ?     To  select 


Does  Science  Need  Secrecy  f  5 

one  part  of  an  experiment  and  to  insist  on  its  painlessness, 
—  ignoring  all  the  rest, —  is  certainly  a  very  questionable 
method  of  defense.  To  take  some  seventy  animals,  chosen 
especially  for  vigor  and  tenacity  of  life,  so  that  experiments 
might  "extend  over  several  hours;"  to  administer  curare  so 
that  after  recovery  from  the  anaesthesia,  (under  which  the 
initial  cutting  operation  was  made,)  they  would  be  incapable 
of  the  slightest  movement  ;  to  make  one  cut  in  the  throat, 
and  another  across  the  sciatic  nerve;  to  experiment  upon 
some  of  them  for  hours,  the  head  immovably  fastened  in  a 
rabbit-holder,  while  others  are  allowed  "to  recover  from  the 
effect  of  the  ether,  and  the  experiment  postponed  for  some 
days;"  —  and  then  to  declare  that  all  these  wounds,  these 
severed  nerves,  these  manipulations,  these  delays  for  days, 
this  artificial  respiration  and  immovable  position  occasioned  no 
painful  sensations  in  any  of  these  creatures,  —  was  doubtless 
beyond  the  audacity  even  of  a  professional  vivisector  directly 
to  assert.  To  ascribe  to  an  opponent  statements  that  he 
never  made,  and  then  to  refute  them,  — leaving  wholly  un- 
touched the  real  issue,  the  only  charge,  —  this  would  be 
strange,  were  it  not  in  accord  with  the  methods  of  that  pseudo- 
science,  which  to-day  hesitates  at  no  trick  of  cunning 
evasion,  if  only  thereby  its  practices  and  principles  may  be 
concealed  from  the  public  eye. 

The  following  essay  does  not  touch  upon  all  the  misstate- 
ments of  the  Harvard  manifesto,  and  some  brief  notes  of 
interrogation  and  comment  may  suggest  to  the  reader  the 
value  of  further  inquiry  and  further  doubt. 

A.   L. 


DOES  SCIENCE  NEED  SECRECY? 


A  REPLY  TO  PROFESSOR  PORTER 

BY 

ALBERT    LEFFINGWELL,    M.  D. 

Formerly   Instructor  in   Physiology,    Polytechnic   Institute,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y 


To  what  extent  can  scientific  authority  be  implicitly  re- 
ceived as  the  foundation  of  belief  regarding  the  subject  of 
Vivisection  ?  It  is  certain  that  for  the  great  majority  of 
men  and  women,  all  statements  concerning  it  are  wholly 
beyond  the  possibility  of  verification  by  personal  experience. 
Regarding  its  extent  or  its  methods,  its  pain  or  painlessness, 
its  utility  to  humanity  or  its  liability  to  abuse,  the  world 
bases  its  judgment,  not  upon  knowledge,  but  upon  faith  in 
the  accuracy,  the  impartiality,  the  sincerity  of  the  men  who, 
standing  within  the  temple  of  science,  know  with  certainty 
the  facts.  One  might  suppose  that  here  was  the  welcome 
opportunity  to  demonstrate  that  science  can  have  nothing  to 
conceal;  that  her  symbol  is  a  torch  and  not  a  veil;  and  that 
above  all  professional  preference  and  all  partisan  zeal  stands 
fidelity  to  accuracy,  and  the  love  of  absolute  truth. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  my  purpose  in  this  paper  to  question 
the  wisdom  of  too  implicit  faith  ;  to  suggest  the  expediency 
of  doubt ;  and  to  point  out  why  statements  which  may  have 
the  support  of  high  scientific  authorities,  should  sometimes 
be  received  with  great  caution  and  careful  discrimination. 

And  yet  I  cannot  see  the  slightest  reason  why  every- 
thing  that  concerns  a  scientific   method   or  purpose  should 


The  substance  of  this  article  was  read  before  the  Annual  Meeting  of  the  American 
Humane  Association,  Minneapolis,  September  26,  1S95,  and  was  printed  in  the  Boston 
Transcript,  September  2S,  1S95. 


S  Does  Science  Need  Secrecy  ? 

not  be  plainly  and  accurately  set  forth.  Generally  this  is 
the  case.  If  a  new  telescope  of  unusual  power  is  desired  by 
a  university,  Wealth  is  not  asked  to  give  it  in  order  that 
wealth  may  be  increased  by  lunar  discoveries.  When  an 
astronomical  station  is  established  on  the  Andes,  or  an 
expedition  fitted  out  for  the  North  Pole,  we  all  know  that 
science  only  will  be  the  gainer  —  not  commerce  or  art.  The 
one  exception  to  an  almost  universal  rule,  the  one  point  where 
truth  is  veiled  in  obscurity  for  the  public  eye,  is  when  we 
come  to  the  vivisection  of  animals.  Everywhere  else  science 
seems  mindful  of  her  mission,  and  asks  only  that  with  in- 
creasing radiance  the  light  may  shine. 

Why  should  vivisection  offer  an  exception  to  this  ideal  ? 
That  it  seems  impossible  to  tell  the  whole  truth  about  it  is 
evident  to  every  person  who  understands  the  facts.  The 
London  Lancet,  for  example,  recently  praised  a  biography 
by  Prof.  Mosso,  in  which  that  Italian  physiologist  —  as  the 
Lancet  remarked,  "wisely"  said,  —  "  It  is  an  error  to  believe 
that  experiments  can  be  performed  on  an  animal  which  feels." 
A  few  weeks  ago  Prefessor  Mosso  sent  me  a  manuscript  copy 
of  this  same  essay,  in  which  the  sentence  appears  in  slightly 
different  form  :  "  It  is  an  error  to  think  that  one  can  experi- 
ment on  animals  that  have  not  lost  sensation  ;  the  disturbance 
produced  by  pain  in  the  organism  of  the  animal  is  so  great 
that  it  renders  useless  any  observations."  Now  here  is  the 
utterance  of  a  man  of  science,  trained  in  the  accuracy  of  the 
laboratory,  occupying  one  of  the  foremost  positions  in  Europe 
as  a  physiologist,  and  his  words,  stamped  with  the  approval 
of  the  leading  Medical  journal  of  England,  may  presently  be 
floating  through  the  American  press.  How  is  the  average 
reader  to  question  a  statement  like  this  ?  Nevertheless,  it 
is  absolutely  untrue.  One  can  perform  experiments  "on  an 
animal  which  feels ;  "  they  have  been  done  by  the  thousand 
by  Bernard,  Magendie,  Mantagazza,  Brown-Sequard,  and 
others ;  I  have  seen  scores  of  these  myself.  No  more  un- 
scientific sentence  was  ever  written  than  this  statement  that 
one  cannot  do  what  is  done  every  day  !  What  the  Italian 
physiologist  might  truthfully  have  written  was  this;  "It  is 


Does  Science  Need  Secrecy  f  g 

an  error  to  believe  that  physiological  experiments,  requiring 
the  aid  of  delicate  instruments,  can  be  performed  upon  an 
animal  which  is  not  made  incapable  of  muscular  effort."  If 
he  had  then  gone  on  to  say  to  what  extent  he  effects  this  by 
means  of  anaesthetics,  to  what  extent  by  the  use  of  narcotics, 
and  to  what  extent  the  poison  of  curare  is  administered  to 
paralyze  the  motor  nerves,  leaving  sensibility  to  pain  un- 
touched, we  might  have  had  a  scientific  statement  of  fact. 
As  it  is,  we  have  —  what  ?  An  untruth  due  to  ignorance? 
An  error  due  to  carelessness  ?  I  do  not  know.  Perhaps 
the  physiologist  was  thinking  too  intently  of  his  own  special 
lines  of  inquiry  to  note  the  significance  of  his  words  ;  but 
what  shall  we  say  of  a  great  scientific  journal  of  England 
which  could  quote  the  untruth  as  "  wisely  "  said  ?  Is  even 
verbal  inaccuracy  "  wise"  where  science  is  concerned  ? 

There  was  recently  given  out  by  Dr.  William  Townsend 
Porter,  the  assistant  professor  of  physiology  in  Harvard 
Medical  School  at  Boston,  one  of  the  most  astonishing  state- 
ments concerning  vivisection  that  ever  appeared  in  public 
print.  The  accuracy  of  Dr.  Porter's  statement  was  vouched 
for  by  five  other  leading  professors  in  the  same  institution — 
Drs.  Henry  P.  Bowditch,  W.  T.  Councilman,  W.  F.  Whit- 
ney, C.  S.  Minot  and  H.  C.  Ernst  ;  men  whose  scientific  rep- 
utation has  imparted  to  their  affirmations  an  immense  au- 
thority throughout  the  country.  They  put  forth  what  they 
asserted  was  a  "  plain  statement  of  the  whole  truth  "  con- 
cerning experiments  on  living  animals.  He,  perhaps,  is  a 
rash  man  who  ventures  to  question  any  assertion  supported 
by  names  like  these.  But  it  is  the  duty  of  every  lover  of 
scientific  truth  to  point  out  errors  wherever  he  may  find  them, 
no  matter  how  shielded  by  authority  or  intrenched  by  public 
opinion ;  and  I  propose,  therefore,  to  make  use  of  this  pro- 
fessional manifesto  as  an  illustration  of  the  fallibility  of  even 
the  highest  scientific  expert  testimony.  I  think  it  can  be 
proven  that  although  this  declaration  rests  on  such  high  au- 
thority, it  is  nevertheless  permeated  with  mis-statement  and 
error;  that  certain  assertions  have  been  made  without  due 
authority,  and  eertain  facts  of  pith  and  moment  most  singu- 


io  Does  Science  Need  Secrecy  ? 

larly  omitted,  or  most  carelessly  overlooked.  And  if  full 
reliance  cannot  be  given  to  assertions  made  by  men  of  the 
highest  fame,  then  the  whole  question  is  as  far  as  ever  from 
permanent  settlement. 

I.  In  the  first  place  Professor  Porter  does  not  well  when 
he  denies  (as  he  seems  to  do)  that  the  practice  of  experi- 
mentation upon  living  animals  has  ever  led  to  abuse. 
"The  cruelties  practiced  by  vivisectors  are  paraded  in  long 
lists,  with  the  assurance  that  they  are  taken  directly  from 
the  published  writings  of  the  vivisectors  themselves."  Well, 
is  this  assurance  untrue  ?  "  These  long-drawn  lists  of 
atrocities  that  never  existed" — can  these  be  the  words  of  a 
devotee  of  scientific  truth  ?  What  does  Professor  Porter 
mean  by  them  ?  What  other  meaning  is  possible  for  the 
average  reader  to  obtain  than  that  he  intended  to  deny  that 
atrocious  experiments  were  anything  but  a  myth  ?  "  Never 
existed  ?  "  Why,  both  in  Europe  and  America,  but  especially 
abroad,  I  have  personally  seen  most  awful  cruelty  inflicted 
upon  living  animals,  simply  for  the  purpose  of  illustrating 
well-known  facts  or  theories  that  had  not  the  faintest  con- 
ceivable relation  to  the  treatment  and  cure  of  disease.  No 
facts  of  history  are  capable  of  more  certain  verification  than 
the  tortures  which  have  marked  the  vivisections  of  Magen- 
die  and  Bernard,  of  Bert  and  Mantagazza,  and  of  a  host  of 
their  imitators.  "  It  is  not  to  be  doubted  that  inhumanity 
may  be  found  in  persons  of  very  high  position  as  physiol- 
ogists ;  we  have  seen  that  it  was  so  in  Magendie."  This  is 
the  language  of  the  report  on  vivisection  by  a  royal  commis- 
sion, to  which  is  attached  the  name  of  Professor  Thomas  H. 
Huxley.  Says  Dr.  Eliotson,  in  his  work  on  Human  Phy- 
siology (p.  448),  "  I  cannot  refrain  from  expressing  my 
horror  at  the  amount  of  torture  which  Dr.  Brachet  inflicted. 
I  hardly  think  knowledge  is  worth  having  at  such  a  purchase." 
But  take  American  testimony  on  this  point.  Dr.  Henry  J. 
Bigelow,  for  many  years  the  professor  of  surgery  in  Harvard 
Medical  School,  of  whom  Dr.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  has 
said,  that  he  was  "one  of  the  tirst,  if  not  the  first,  of  Amer- 
ican surgeons,"   gave  the  annual  address  before  the    Massa- 


Does  Science  Need  Secrecy  f  1 1 

chusetts  Medical  Society  a  few  years  ago.  Therein  he  called 
attention  to  the  "dreadful  sufferings  of  dumb  animals,  the 
cold-blooded  cruelties  now  more  and  more  practiced  under  the 
authority  of  science !  .  .  .  Watch  the  students  at  a 
vivisection.  It  is  the  blood  and  suffering,  not  the  science 
that  rivets  their  breathless  attention.  .  .  .  It  is  dread- 
ful to  think  how  many  poor  animals  will  be  subjected  to  ex- 
cruciating agony  as  one  medical  college  after  another  be- 
comes penetrated  with  the  idea  that  vivisection  is  a  part  of 
modern  teaching  ;  that  to  hold  way  with  other  institutions 
they,  too,  must  have  their  vivisector,  their  mutilated  dogs, 
their  chamber  of  horrors  and  torture  to  advertise  as  a  labora- 
tory." Does  anyone  imagine  that  Dr.  Bigelow  here  refers  to 
"  atrocities  that  never  existed  ?  " 

The  American  Academy  of  Medicine  includes  within 
its  membership  men  who  are  as  well  informed  as  any  in  the 
medical  profession.  At  the  sixteenth  annual  meeting,  held 
in  Washington  four  years  ago,  Dr.  Theophilus  Parvin,  one 
of  the  professors  in  Jefferson  Medical  College  of  Phila- 
delphia, gave  the  Presidential  address.  Speaking  of  physi- 
ologists, he  says  that  there  ars  some  "  who  seem,  seeking 
useless  knowledge,  to  be  blind  to  the  writhing  agony  and  deaf 
to  the  cry  of  pain  of  their  victims,  and  who  have  been 
guilty  of  the  most  damnable  cruelties  without  the  denunci- 
ation by  the  public  that  their  wickedness  deserves  and  de- 
mands ;  these  criminals  are  not  confined  to  Germany  or 
France,  but  may  be  found  in  our  own  country."  Is  this  the 
statement  of  an  "agitator?"  President  Parvin  graduated 
as  a  physician  some  years  before  Dr.  Porter  was  born, 
and  I  fancy  that  he  knows  of  what  he  speaks.  And  that 
physiological  experimenter  who,  defending  the  utility  of 
vivisection,  forgets  or  denies  the  existence  of  atrocity,  may 
be  on  dangerous  ground.  Cases  have  been  known  where 
merciless  occupation  has  induced  an  atrophy  of  the  sense  of 
pity  ;  and  its  first  symptom  is  unconsciousness  of  cruelty, 
and  blindness  to  abuse. 

II.  But  quite  as  strange  as  any  assertion  in  this 
"  plain  statement  of  the  whole  truth  "  is  the  implied,  sugges- 


1 2  Does  Science  Need  Secrecy  ? 

tion  that  abuse  is  impossible  because  everything  is  so  openly 
done  !  "These  loud  outcries  to  put  an  end  to  the  frightful 
scenes  daily  enacted  within  the  open  doors  of  the  most 
enlightened  institutions  of  learning," — surely  there  is  a 
false  impression  conveyed  by  these  words  which  their  writer 
should  hasten  to  correct.  "  Within  the  open  doors!  "  To 
whom  are  the  doors  of  the  physiological  laboratories  open  ? 
Why,  no  feudal  castle  of  the  middle  ages  was  ever  more 
rigidly  guarded  against  the  entrance  of  an  enemy  than  physio- 
logical laboratories  are  secured  against  the  admission  of  un- 
welcome visitors.  To  some  of  the  largest  laboratories  in  the 
United  States,  no  physician  even,  can  gain  entrance  unless 
personally  known.  If  the  Bishop  of  Massachusetts  and 
the  editor  of  any  leading  newspaper  in  the  city  were  to 
apply  for  admittance  at  Professor  Porter's  laboratory  during 
a  vivisection,  would  the  doors  swing  open  as  to  welcome 
guests  ?  Would  they  be  invited  to  come  again  and  as  often 
as  desired,  without  previous  notification?  I  commend  the 
experiment.  Of  course  a  certain  degree  of  this  seclusion 
is  necessary  and  wise.  That  which  I  criticise  is  the  implied 
denial  that  any  secrecy  exists  and  this  reference  to  "  open 
doors."  And  if  doubt  still  lingers  in  the  minds  of  any  who 
read,  a  conclusive  experiment  will  not  be  difficult  to  make. 
Let  him  but  knock  at  these  "open  doors"  when  vivisection 
is  going  on. 

III.  We  are  informed,  too,  by  these  scientific  author- 
ities that  by  so  simple  a  method  as  "a  scratch  on  the  tail 
of  an  etherized  mouse"  and  subsequent  treatment,  "the 
priceless  discovery  was  made  which  has  at  length  banished 
tetanus  from  the  list  of  incurable  disorders."  That  is  an 
unscientific  statement  simply  because  it  is  untrue.  Tetanus, 
or  lockjaw,  was  never  in  "the  list  of  incurable  disorders  " 
—  if  uniform  fatality  is  meant;  and  it  certainly  has  not 
been  taken  out  of  the  list  by  any  "  priceless  discovery " 
whatever.  Consult  Aikin,  Wood,  Fagge,  Gross  —  consult 
any  medical  authority  whatever  of  ten  years  ago — and  you 
find  the  recoveries  from  tetanus  averaged  at  that  time  from 
ten   to  fifty-eight  per   cent,   of    those   who   were  attacked. 


Does  Science  Need  Secrecy  ?  1 3 

Now,  what  mighty  change  has  been  wrought  by  the  "  price- 
less discovery  ? "  Well,  I  take  up  the  London  Lancet  of 
Aug.  10,  1895,  and  I  find  an  English  physician  tracing  "all 
procurable  published  and  unpublished  cases  of  tetanus 
treated  by  anti-toxine,"  and  they  number  just  thirty-eight, 
of  which  twenty-five  were  recoveries  and  thirteen  were 
deaths.  I  take  up  the  New  York  Medical  Record  for  Aug. 
24,  1895,  and  I  find  a  correspondent  stating  that  he  "can 
discover  in  the  recent  medical  literature  but  six  or  seven 
cases  in  all  where  anti-toxine  or  tetanine  has  been  used 
successfully,  and  they  were  all  by  foreigners."  To  call 
that  a  "priceless  discovery,"  which  is  not  in  general  use 
today,  which  in  four  years  has  made  no  better  record  than 
this,  and  with  which  the  report  of  hardly  a  single  cure  can 
be  found  in  American  medical  annals  within  the  last  five 
years,  —  is  that  a  scientific  statement  ?  Is  it  worthy  of  the 
reputation  of  men  who  allowed  it  to  go  forth  to  the  world 
backed  by  the  eminence  of  their  names  ? 

IV.  "It  is  asserted,"  says  Professor  Porter,  "that 
living  animals,  without  narcotics,  helpless  under  the  control 
of  poisons  which,  it  is  alleged,  destroy  the  power  to  move 
while  increasing  the  power  to  suffer,  are  subjected  to  long, 
agonizing  operations,  in  the  hope  of  securing  some  new 
fact,  interesting  to  the  scientific  mind,  but  without  practical 
value."  This  is  one  of  the  most  curious  and  ingenious 
sentences  I  have  ever  read.  Its  inaccuracy  depends  on  only 
two  words,  "  without  narcotics."  No  critic  of  vivisection 
ever  made  use  of  those  words  in  any  such  statement ;  and 
I  respectfully  challenge  Professor  Porter  for  reference  or 
quotation.     It  cannot  be  given. 

But,  if  instead  of  the  words  "without  narcotics," 
Professor  Porter  had  written  "  without  anaesthetics,"  then 
he  would  have  made  a  precise,  accurate  and  true  statement 
of  what  undoubtedly  has  been  charged.  Could  any  reader 
imagine  that  such  a  charge  was  true,  and  that  it  might 
exactly  apply  to  some  operations  carried  on  in  the  labora- 
tories of  Harvard  Medical  School  ?  "  Helpless  under  the 
control  of  poisons  which  destroy  the  power  to  move,  while 


14  Does  Science  Need  Secrecy  ? 

increasing  the  power  to  suffer,"  writes  the  physiologist,  in 
seeming  amazement  at  the  mendacity  that  could  coin  such  a 
wicked  lie !  Yet  that  statement  is  entirely  true.  The  name 
of  that  poison  is  curari  or  woorara ;  the  orthography  is  by 
no  means  fixed.  "  Woorari,"  says  Dr.  Ott  (who  has  per- 
sonally made  use  of  it  in  the  physiological  laboratory  at 
Harvard  Medics!  School),  "is  able  to  render  animals  im- 
movable ...  by  a  paralysis  of  the  motor  nerves, 
leaving  sensory  nerves  intact."  The  properties  of  this  singular 
poison  have  been  carefully  investigated  by  Claude  Bernard, 
whose  work  on  experimental  science  may  be  seen  at  the 
Boston  Public  Library.  "Le  Curare,"  he  says,  "  detruit  le 
mouvement,  en  laissant  persister  la  sensibilite  "  (p.  298)  ; 
"  Curare  destroys  the  power  of  movement,  although  sensi- 
bility persists."  Under  the  influence  of  this  agent  the  ani- 
mals upon  which  the  physiologist  may  be  working  are 
"  exactly  as  if  solidly  fixed  to  the  table,  are  in  truth 
chained  for  hours"  (p.  310).  Does  it  know  what  is  going 
on  ?  "  When  a  mammal  is  poisoned  by  curari,  its  intelli- 
gence, sensibility  or  will  power  are  not  affected,  but  they 
lose  the  power  of  moving  "  (p.  296).  Do  they  suffer  ?  Is 
it  true,  this  statement  which  Professor  Porter  tells  us  is 
"asserted,"  but  which  he  does  not  —  except  by  inuendo  — 
deny,  that  animals  are  "helpless  under  control  of  poisons 
which  destroy  the  power  to  move,  while  increasing  the 
power  to  suffer  ? "  Well,  Claude  Bernard  was  one  of  the 
greatest  physiologists  of  this  century,  and  he  shall  tell  us. 
Death  by  curare,  he  says,  although  it  seems  "  si  calme,  et  si 
exempte  de  douleur,  est  au  contraire,  accompagnee  des 
souffrances,  les  plus  atroces  que  l'imagination  de  l'homme 
puisse  concevoir," — sufferings  the  most  atrocious  that  the 
imagination  of  man  can  conceive !  "  In  that  corpse  with- 
out movement  and  with  every  appearance  of  death,  sensi- 
bility and  intelligence  exist  without  change.  The  cadaver 
that  one  has  before  him  hears  attd  comprehends  what  goes  on 
about  him,  and  feels  whatever  painful  impressions  we  may 
inflict."  (p.  291)  Is  an  animal  ever  "  curarized"  in  the 
Harvard  Medical  School  ?     We  shall  presently  see. 


Does  Science  Need  Secrecy  ?  1 5 

V.  Throughout  the  entire  manifesto  the  word  "  nar- 
cotics"  is  constantly  used  apparently  as  a  synonym  for 
"  anaesthetics ; "  we  read  for  instance  of  "  a  rabbit  narco- 
tized with  chloral,"  a  "  narcotized  dog,"  etc.,  but  not  once  of 
an  "anaesthetized  "  animal.  Let  us  see  exactly  what  these 
terms  indicate. 

In  the  physiological  laboratory  five  different  substances 
are  largely  employed  for  producing  certain  effects  in  ani- 
mals used  for  experiment.  Of  curare  I  have  just  spoken. 
Chloroform  and  ether  are  known  as  "anaesthetics;"  that 
is,  agents  which,  pushed  sufficiently  far,  produce  a  degree  of 
the  most  absolute  insensibility  to  pain.  But  the  trouble 
with  these  anaesthetics  in  the  laboratory  is  their  liability  to 
cause  the  sudden  death  of  the  animal  experimented  upon  ; 
and  this  is  often  most  annoying  and  inconvenient.  The 
temptation  therefore  is  great  to  substitute  for  these  anaes- 
thetics certain  "  narcotics  "  which  create  a  degree  of  torpor, 
though  they  do  not  prevent  pain.  Opium  (or  morphia)  and 
chloral  are  the  agents  thus  used.  An  animal  treated  with 
either  may  be  said  to  be  "  narcotized."  But  is  the  creature 
thus  narcotized,  sensitive  to  the  pain  of  cutting,  for  ex- 
ample? Take  opium.  Claude  Bernard,  the  great  French 
physiologist,  asserts  that  sensibility  exists  even  though  the 
animal  be  incapable  of  movement  ;  "  il  sent  la  douleur,  mais 
il  a,  pour  ainsi  dire,  perdu  l'idee  de  la  defense;"  he  feels 
the  pain,  but  has  lost,  so  to  speak,  the  idea  of  defending 
himself.  Do  surgeons  use  morphia  to  prevent  the  pain  of 
a  surgical  operation  ?  Or  take  chloral.  It  is  a  narcotic  ;  it 
tends  to  produce  sleep.  Is  it  an  anaesthetic  ?  Dr.  Farqu- 
harson  of  St.  Mary's  Hospital  says  in  his  "  Guide  to  Thera- 
peutics "  (p.  195)  :  "  Recent  observations  goes  to  show 
that  chloral  is  in  no  sense  a  true  ancestlietic.  .  .  .  Chloral 
having  no  influence  over  sensory  nerves,  has  no  power,  per 
se,  of  allaying  pain."  Dr.  Wood  of  Philadelphia  seems 
disposed  to  think  that  "  in  very  large  doses  "  chloral  will 
produce  insensibility  to  pain ;  but  he  adds  that  unless  the 
amount  employed  be  so  large  as  to  be  almost  poisonous, 
"this  anaesthesia  is  in  most  cases  very  trifling." 


1 6  Does  Science  Need  Secrecy  ? 

For  use  in  the  physiological  laboratory,  the  dose  for  a 
rabbit  is  fifteen  grains,  or  one  gramme.  What  shall  we 
say  of  most  painful  experiments  upon  rabbits,  "lightly 
chloralized  "  with  one-tenth  the  ordinary  dose?  Such  inves- 
tigations were  made  by  Professor  Porter  himself,  at  the  Har- 
vard Medical  School,  and  within  the  last  two  years. 

VI.  And  this  brings  me  to  a  point  upon  which  I  am 
loth  to  touch,  since  it  would  seem  to  involve  the  most  posi- 
tive contradiction  of  statements  made  by  scientific  men  of 
the  highest  authority.  Speaking  in  the  plural  number  for 
his  five  associates,  Professor  Porter  has  said  of  vivisections 
causing  pain,  that  "  such  investigations  are  rare.  None 
sucli  have  bee7i  made  in  the  Harvard  Medical  School  within 
our  knowledge."  This  assertion  has  been  widely  copied, 
and  is  almost  universally  believed.  The  Boston  Transcript 
doubtless  echoed  the  sentiment  of  the  public  when  it 
declared  in  its  editorial  columns  that  "  the  character  and 
standing  of  the  medical  men  whose  names  are  given  as 
responsible  for  this  explanation  to  the  Boston  public  forbid 
any  questioning  of  its  statements  of  facts."  What  is  the 
value  of  authority  if  one  may  assume  to  disbelieve  in  a  case 
like  this  ?  Here  is  the  assertion  of  six  scientific  teachers. 
For  the  general  public,  nothing  would  seem  to  remain  but 
unquestioning  acceptance,  and  implicit  belief. 

But  a  great  English  thinker  has  said  that  doubt  is  the 
very  foundation  of  science,  since  "  without  doubt,  there  would 
be  no  inquiry,  and  without  inquiry,  no  knowledge."  In  the 
interests  of  scientific  truth,  I  venture  here,  to  suggest  doubt 
rather  than  credulity.  We  have  an  assertion  which  is  either 
true  or  false.  I  doubt  its  truth.  I  affirm  that  evidence 
exists  that  experiments  have  been  made  in  Harvard  Medical 
School  under  the  following  circumstances  : 

i.  Animals  have  been  "  curarized"  and  in  that  con- 
dition vivisected.  Curare  is  not  an  anaesthetic,  but  simply 
prevents  the  animal  from  moving,  while  remaining  entirely 
sensible  to  pain. 


Does  Science  Need  Secrecy  ?  1 7 

2.  Animals  have  been  "very  lightly  narcotized"  and 
in  that  condition  vivisected.  There  is  no  evidence  that 
animals  "lightly  chloralized  "  are  insensible  to  pain. 

3.  In  the  majority  of  published  accounts  of  experi- 
ments, there  is  no  mention  whatever  of  anaesthetics  being 
used.  In  a  few  instances  only,  there  is  reference  to  the  ad- 
ministration of  ether  before  the  preliminary  cutting,  often 
followed  later  by  use  of  curare. 

4.  The  majority  of  these  published  investigations,  so 
far  as  I  have  been  able  to  discover,  relate  to  curious  ques- 
tions in  physiology,  and  have  no  perceptible  relation  to  the 
treatment  or  cure  of  human  ailments. 

For  proof  of  these  statements  I  refer  to  the  published 
accounts  of  various  experimenters  themselves,  concerning 
their  own  investigations.  Most  of  them  may  be  found  in 
somewhat  rare  volumes  entitled,  "  Collected  Papers, 
Physiological  Laboratory  of  Harvard  Medical  School." 

1.  Dr.  Ott  on  the  Action  of  Lobelina.  "The' 
number  of  my  experiments  was  six,  and  all  were  made  on 
rabbits.  .  .  .  Into  the  left  jugular  had  been  bound  a 
canula,  through  which  the  poison  was  injected  toward  the 
heart.  (Exp.  1.)  As  the  injection  of  the  poison  caused 
struggling.  .  .  .  I  used  curare  to  paralyze  the  motor 
nerves.  (Exp.  II.)  Rabbit,  curarized,  vagus  irritated. 
(This  experiment  lasted  thirty  minutes.)  From  another 
series,  we  may  quote  the  Exp.  VIII.  Dog  ;  vagi  and  sym- 
pathetics  cut  ;  artificial  respiration,  etc. 

"The  above  experiments  were  made  in  Professor  Bow- 
ditch's  laboratory  at  Harvard  Medical  School."  There  is  no 
mention  of  anesthetics. 

2.  Dr.  Ott  on  the  Action  of  Thebain.  "  In  all 
cases  of  poisoning  by  thebain,  the  functions  of  the  sensory 
nerves  remain  unimpared  till  death,  as  convulsions  are  al- 
ways excited  by  touch,  up  to  that  period."  (p.  5.)  "  I  have 
made  use  of  the  beautiful  method  of  Brown-Sequard  in  cut- 
ting of  the  action  of  the  poison  on  the  lower  segment  of  the 
spine,"    etc.     "  The   experiments    on    the   circulation   were 


1 8  Docs  Science  Need  Secrecy  ? 

twenty-six  in   number  and  were  made  on  rabbits.     .     . 
Artificial    respiration  was    kept    up.     .     .     .     Curare   was 
used."     Dr.  Ott  makes  no  mention  of  anaesthetics. 

"It  is  well-known,"  says  Dr.  Ott,  "that  the  irritation 
of  a  sensory  nerve  causes  an  excitation  of  the  vaso-motor 
centre,  which  is  indexed  by  a  rise  of  pressure.  The  follow- 
ing experiment  was  made :  Ludwig's  gimlet  electrodes 
were  screwed  into  the  atlas  and  occiputal  bone  (the  skull  of 
a  rabbit)  for  direct  irritation  ;  vagi  cut  ;  curare ;  sciatic 
nerve  prepared  ;  vaso-motor  centre  irritated  through  a 
sensory  nerve  three  seconds  ;  directly  irritated  for  eleven 
seconds."  The  entire  experiment  lasted  twenty-five  minutes ; 
the  pressure  rose  from  150  to  186  and  198.  Dr.  Ott  adds  : 
"As  indirect  irritation  always  produces  a  rise  of  pressure, 
the  sensory  neives  and  the  conductors  of  their  impressions 
are  not  paralyzed"  (p.  12).  Will  some  one  assert  that  this 
was  a  "  painless  "  experiment  ?  Where  was  it  done  ?  "  The 
above  experiments  were  made  in  the  physiological  laboratory 
of  Professor  Bowditch  at  the  Harvard  Medical  School." 

3.  Dr.  Walton  on  the  Epiglottis.  Case  IX.  "Dog; 
epiglottis  excised ;  watched  six  days  ;  coughed  at  almost 
every  attempt  to  eat  or  drink.  Case  X.  Large  dog;  epi- 
glottis excised  ;  observed  twenty-one  days  ;  choked  in  swal- 
lowing liquids  and  solids  at  every  trial."  "  The  experi- 
ments were  performed  in  the  laboratory  of  Harvard  Medical 
School."  A  dog,  strangling  in  all  attempts  to  swallow  food 
for  a  period  of  three  weeks  can  hardly  be  said  to  undergo 
"a  painless  experiment." 

4.  Dr.  Hooper's  Experiments.  "  The  following  ex- 
periment was  made  in  order  to  ascertain  whether  an  upward 
movement  of  the  cricoid  cartilage  was  necessarily  associated 
with  increased  capacity  of  the  larynx."  Small  dog;  cura- 
rized  ;  artificial  respiration  ;  pharynx  plugged  ;  a  cord  tied 
around  the  head  and  jaw  in  front  of  the  ears  to  compress  the 
cotton  and  the  passages  leading  upward.  Trachia  divided  ; 
a  tubulated  cork  secured  in  upper  end.  "It  maybe  ques- 
tioned certainly  how  far  an  experiment  of  this  kind  can  be 
applied  to  the  living  human  larynx,  or  with  what  logical  jus- 


Docs  Science  Need  Secrecy?  19 

tice  we  can  draw  conclusions  from  it."  "The  experiments 
recorded  in  this  paper  were  performed  in  the  physiological 
laboratory  of  Harvard  Medical  School."  Of  another  series 
of  ninety-four  experiments  upon  nine  different  dogs,  it  is 
stated  that  they  were  etherized  "  during  the  early  part  of 
the  operation."  If  one  desires  to  see  the  picture  of  a  dog 
"  thoroughly  etherized  or  chloralized,"  fastened  immovably, 
its  throat  cut,  and  its  larynx  dissected  out  and  tied  up  with 
a  string  —  an  experiment  from  the  physiological  laboratory 
of  Harvard  Medical  School — let  him  consult  one  of  Dr. 
Hooper's  papers. 

5.  Vaso-motor  Experiments  upon  Frogs,  by  Dr. 
Ellis.  "  All  the  frogs  were  curarized.  .  .  .  The  sciatic 
nerve  laid  bare  and  cut  in  the  upper  part  of  the  thigh."  Dr. 
Ellis  tells  us  that  "many  frogs  were  used;"  that  "different 
frogs  vary  greatly  in  their  susceptibility  to  different  forms  of 
electrical  irritation  ;  "  that  "  each  animal  is  a  law  unto  itself  ;  " 
that  "  the  individual  peculiarities  of  different  frogs  and  the 
varying  conditions  to  which  they  are  subjected  add  perplex- 
ing elements  to  the  problem  ;  "  that  "  very  delicate  apparatus 
was  employed;"  that  in  some  instances  a  "curious  result 
was  obtained  by  striking  the  abdomen  rapidly  for  a  short 
time,  causing  the  force  of  the  heart-beats  to  much  dimin- 
ish ; "  that  sometimes  the  little  creature's  heart  becomes 
"  enormously  swollen  with  blood,  as  shown  by  the  great  rise 
in  the  lever  ;  "  that  shocks  were  "  given  once  every  second  " 
in  certain  cases,  and  that  "  very  beautiful  records  can  be 
taken."  No  doubt;  no  doubt.  All  this  may  be  interesting 
to  the  physiologist ;  but  what  practical  results  were  obtained  ? 
"We  cannot  believe,"  says  the  Harvard  manifesto,  "that 
such  inquiries  are  ever  taken  without  .  .  .  the  conviction 
that  the  benefit  to  humanity  will  far  outweigh  whatever  suf- 
fering they  may  cause  to  the  animals."  These  are  beautiful 
words !  Let  Dr.  Ellis  state  the  results  of  his  experi- 
ments in  his  own  way  :  "  The  results  of  our  experiments 
point  to  the  existence  of  a  vaso-dilator  as  well  as  a  vaso- 
constrictor mechanism  in  the  frog!"  That  is  all.  The 
"benefit  to  humanity"  was  about  as  much  as  would  come 
from  the  discovery  of  a  silver  mine  in  the  moon. 


20  Does  Science  Need  Secrecy  f 

6.  Dr.  Bowditch's  Experiments  on  the  Vaso-motor 
Nerves.  "After  some  preliminary  experiments  on  other 
animals,  it  was  decided  to  use  cats  in  this  research,  since 
adult  cats  vary  less  than  dogs  in  size,  and  are  much  more 
vigorous  and  tenacious  of  life  than  rabbits  or  other  animals 
usually  employed  in  physiological  laboratories.  The  latter 
point  is  one  of  considerable  importance  in  experiments  ex- 
tending over  several  hours.  The  animals  were  cnrarized 
and  kept  alive  by  artificial  respiration,  while  the  pherpheric 
end  of  the  divided  sciatic  nerve  was  stimulated  by  induction 
shocks,  varying  in  intensity  and  frequency.  .  .  .  The 
experiments  were  so  prolonged  that  it  seemed  important  to 
give  to  the  air  thrown  through  the  trachial  canula  into  the 
lungs  a  temperature  as  near  as  possible  to  air  respired 
through  the  natural  channel.  .  .  .  "The  cat  to  be  experi- 
mented upon  was  first  etherized  by  being  placed  in  a  bell- 
glass  with  a  sponge  saturated  with  ether,  and  then  secured, 
"  the  head  being  held  in  an  ordinary  Czermak's  rabbit- 
holder.  The  sciatic  nerve  was  then  divided.  In  some  cases 
the  cat  was  allowed  to  recover  from  the  effect  of  the  ether, 
and  the  experiment  postponed  some  days  ;  in  others,  a  half- 
per-cent  solution  of  curare  was  put  into  circulation  while 
the  animal  was  still  etherized."  (The  effect  of  the  curare 
would  be  to  render  the  animal  motionless,  after  recovery 
from  the  ether;  it  has  no  other  use.)  In  all,  there  were  909 
observations  made  upon  "  about  seventy  cats."*  In  one  ex- 
periment "a  tetanic  stimulation  was  applied  for  fifteen  min- 
utes to  the  sciatic  nerve.  The  result  was  a  constriction 
steadily  maintained  during  the  continuance  of  the  irritation." 
If  there  were  any  results  for  "benefit  of  humanity"  in  these 
investigations,  they  are  not  recorded.  These  experiments 
were  made  at  Harvard  Medical  School ;  and  I  submit  that 
they  were  by  no  means  "  painless." 


*  In  the  Boston  Transcript  of  Feb.  10,  iSSfl,  the  Dean  of  Harvard  Medical  School 
was  reported  as  denying;  that  cats  were  used  for  vivisection,  and  as  affirming  that  although 
connected  with  ttie  School  since  his  graduation  he  had  "  never  seen  or  heard  of  a  cat 
being  in  the  building."  It  is  indeed  strange  that  the  fame  of  Dr.  Bowditch's  researches 
upon  these  "  seventy  cats  "  did  not  even  reach  his  associate  in  the  same  building. 


Does  Science  Need  Secrecy  ?  2 1 

7.  Dr.  Bowditch's  Experiments  on  Nerves.  These 
were  made  upon  cats  "  in  the  laboratory  of  Harvard 
Medical  School."  "  The  animals  were  kept  under  the 
influence  of  a  dose  of  curare  just  strong  enough  to  prevent 
muscular  contractions  ;  while  artificial  respiration  was 
maintained,  and  the  sciatic  nerve  constantly  subjected  to 
stimulation  sufficiently  intense  to  produce  in  unpoisoned 
animals,  a  tetanic  contraction  of  the  muscles.  In  this  way 
it  was  found  that  stimulation  of  a  nerve  lasting  from  one 
and  a  half  to  four  hours  (the  muscle  being  prevented  from 
contracting  by  curare)  did  not  exhaust  the  nerve."  The 
foregoing  quotation  is  from  an  address  given  before  the 
American  Association  for  Advancement  of  Science,  August, 
1886  —  nine  years  ago.  If  any  great  "benefit  to  human- 
ity" has  resulted  from  them,  it  has  not  yet  been  made  pub- 
lic.    Were  these  experiments  "  painless  ?  " 

8.  Dr.  Ernst's  Researches  into  Rabies.  In  the 
"American  Journal  of  Medical  Sciences"  for  April,  1887, 
there  appears  an  account  of  certain  investigations  into 
the  nature  of  rabies  and  hydrophobia,  made  by  Dr.  Harold 
C.  Ernst  of  the  Harvard  Medical  School.  Some  thirty- 
two  rabbits  were  inoculated  with  rabies,  and  all  of  them 
died  of  this  terrible  disease.  Without  touching  upon  the 
question  of  utility  in  this  particular  instance,  I  submit  that 
by  his  own  account  of  these  investigations,  they  were  by  no 
means  "  painless." 

9.  Experiments  of  Prof.  Porter  on  the  Spinal 
Cord.  In  the  "Journal  of  Physiology"  for  April  6,  1S95, 
appears  a  long  and  elaborate  article  on  the  "  Path  of  the 
Respiratory  Impulses,"  by  Professor  William  Townsend 
Porter,  of  the  Laboratory  of  Physiology  in  the  Harvard 
Medical  School,  the  author  of  the  preceding  manifesto. 
Taken  in  conjunction  with  his  assertion  regarding  painful 
vivisections  that  "nonesuch  have  been  made  in  Harvard 
Medical  School  within  our  knowledge,"  this  paper  would 
seem  to  offer  a  very  curious  and  significant  illustration  of 
scientific  forgetfulness.  The  object  of  Professor  Porter's 
experiments  was  the  confirmation  of  a  purely    physiological 


22  Does  Science  Need  Secrecy  f 

hypothesis  ;  one  which  had  no  reference  whatever  to  the 
cure  or  treatment  of  human  ills.  His  researches  embraced 
at  least  sixty-eight  experiments,  and  full  details  of  fifteen 
are  given  in  this  essay.  In  seven  of  these  fifteen  experi- 
ments—  all  involving  most  painful  mutilations  —  light 
doses  of  morphia  or  chloral  were  administered  instead  of 
anaesthetics  ;  in  one  experiment  the  dose  is  not  given,  and 
in  another  there  is  no  mention  of  any  "  narcotic  "  of  any 
kind.  Even  when  ether  was  given,  it  was  not  as  a  rule 
used  throughout  the  experiment.  Some  examples  will  be  of 
interest ;  the  italics  are  mine. 

"  I  have  separated  the  cord  from  the  bulb  in  eight  rab- 
bits and  six  dogs,  all  fully  grown.  .  .  .  Artificial  respir- 
ation was  kept  up  a  long  time.  .  .  .  The  animals  were 
all  very  lightly  narcotized." 

Exp.  I.  Dec.  19,  1893.  "The  fourth  ventricle  was  laid 
bare  in  a  large,  lightly  chloralized  rabbit,  and  the  floor  of 
the  left  side  of  the  medium  line  burned  away  with  small 
hot  glass  beads.  Respiration  continued  on  both  sides  in 
spite  of  repeated  cauterizations." 

Exp.  II.  Dec.  15,  1893.  "Most  of  the  left  side  of  the 
floor  of  the  left  ventricle  of  a  rabbit,  lightly  chloralized,  (not 
over  0.1  g.),  was  burned  away."  {This  was  one-tenth  the 
usual  dose  of  chloral.) 

Exp.  XXIII.  Feb.  27,  1894.  Dog  narcotized  with 
morphia.  Cervical  cord  exposed  its  entire  length  ;  severed 
at  the  sixth  cervical  vertebra,  and  the  posterior  roots  of 
the  cervical  nerves  cut.  (An  exceedingly  painful  experi- 
ment.) 

Exp.  LXVI.  Nov.  20,  1894.  Rabbit,  "lightly  narcot- 
ized with  ether."  Left  phrenic  nerve  "  was  seized  near 
the  first  rib  and  torn  out  of  the  chest."  .  .  .  "  I  have 
made  such  experiments  on  thirteen  rabbits  and  one  dog, 
and  the  result  has  ahvays  been  the  same"  A  beautiful 
engraving  gives  the  respiratory  curve  of  this  rabbit,  "the 
left  phrenic  nerve  of  which  had  been  torn  out.  .  .  .  "The 
stars  denote  struggling." 


Does  Science  Need  Secrecy  ?  23 

Exp.  LI.  May  3,  1894.  "At  10.30  a  middle-sized  dog 
received  0.2  g.  morphia.  Half  an  hour  later,  the  left  half 
of  the  spinal  cord  was  severed.  .  .  .  Animal  being 
loosed,  showed  a  paralysis  on  the  left  side.  ...  At 
4.30  the  dog  was  bound  again  and  the  abdomen  opened." 
Why  was  the  dog  "bound  again?"  No  mention  of  "nar- 
cotic" or  anaesthetic  during  further  steps  of  the  experi- 
ment. 

Exp.  XXV.  Mar.  3,  1894.  Dog;  given  0.15  grammes 
morphia  sulphate  ;  tracheotomized,  spinal  cord  severed  at 
sixth  cervical  vertebra  ;  artificial  respiration. 

Exp.  XLIX.  May  1,  1894.  "At  10  a.  m.  the  left  side 
of  the  spinal  cord  of  a  rabbit,  narcotized  with  ether,  was 
cut.  .  .  .  At  4  p.  m.,  5*4  hours  after,  breathing  was 
bilateral.  .  .  .  On  opening  the  abdomen  .  .  .  dia- 
phragm was  once   more  exposed   and   cut  in  two  pieces." 

.  .  .  (No  mention  of  anaesthetic  or  narcotic  during 
latter  half  of  experiment,  "5^  hours  later.") 

Exp.  LII.  May  4,  1894.  Spinal  cord  of  rabbit  nar- 
cotized with  ether,  cut  on  left  side.  .  .  .  Seven  hours 
later  he  was  in  good  condition  and  kicked  vigorously  as  he 
was  again  put  on  the  board.  The  abdomen  opened  in  the 
median  line  .  .  .  phrenic  nerve  was  now  cut,  etc." 
There  is  no  mention  of  narcotic  or  anaesthetic  during  the 
latter  part  of  the  operation,  "seven  hours  later"  when  the 
rabbit,  kicking  vigorously,  "  was  again  put  on  the  board," 
to  have  its  abdomen  opened. 

Exp.  LVI.  May  14,  1894.  Rabbit,  etherized  and  trache- 
otomized. Spinal  cord  cut;  artificial  respiration;  "The 
narcotic  was  stopped.  On  turning  the  rabbit  and  opening 
the  abdomen,"  etc.  Why  was  not  the  abdomen  opened 
before  "the  narcotic  was  stopped  ?" 

Exp.  LXI.  Nov.  8,  1894.  The  right  half  of  the  spinal 
cord  of  a  full-grown  rabbit  was  severed  .  .  .  the  phrenic 
nerve  cut  .  .  .  artificial  respiration,  etc."  There  is  no 
mention  whatever  of  either  narcotic  or  anaesthetic  being 
used  in  this  experiment. 


24  Does  Science  Need  Secrecy  ? 

"Other  experiments  could  be  added,  but  they  seem  unnec- 
essary," says  Professor  Porter.     We  agree  with  him. 

There  are  few  laboratories  in  Europe  better  equipped*for 
vivisection  than  the  scene  of  all  these  experiments.  In  one 
of  his  works,  Dr.  Ott  pays  a  tribute  to  the  inventive  genius 
of  Prof.  Henry  P.  Bowditch  of  Harvard  Medical  School, 
who,  it  seems,  has  contrived  a  new  device  for  holding  immov- 
ably the  head  of  an  animal  to  be  vivisected.  "  It  consists 
of  a  fork-shaped  iron  instrument,  the  points  of  the  fork 
united  by  an  iron  bar  .  .  .  which  is  passed  behind  the 
canine's  (teeth)  and  bound  fast  by  a  strong  cord  which  is 
fastened  over  the  jaws.  When  the  iron  rod  is  fastened  to 
the  prongs,  the  handle  is  inserted  into  the  screw-sliding 
points  of  the  upright  rod  of  a  Bernard  holder,"  in  which 
device  certain  straps  prevent  the  dog  "from  retracting  his 
nose."  But  how  can  a  dog  retract  his  nose  if  insensible? 
Why  should  he  wish  to  retract  his  nose  if  he  is  suffering 
nothing?  "I  sometimes  fear,"  said  Dr.  Theophilus  Parvin 
in  his  address  before  the  American  Academy  of  Medicine, 
"  that  this  anaesthesia  is  frequently  nominal  rather  than 
real;  else  why  so  many  ingenious  contrivances  for  confining 
the  animal  during  operations,  contrivances  that  are  not 
made  use  of  in  surgical  operations  upon  human  beings?" 

These  were  Boston  vivisections.  They  were  not  done 
thousands  of  miles  away  in  some  distant  European  laboratory, 
but  here  at  home.  Should  they  have  been  left  in  the  quiet 
secrecy  of  physiological  literature  ?  Then  assuredly  their 
existence  ought  not  to  have  been  so  explicitly  denied. 

What  judgment  are  we  entitled  to  pass  upon  this  mani- 
festo? Was  it,  indeed,  what  it  claimed  to  be — "a  plain 
statement  of  the  whole  truth  ?  " 

No.  A  "  statement  of  the  whole  truth  "  would  not  have 
carefully  mentioned  "a  scratch  of  the  tail  of  an  etherized 
mouse,"  and  made  no  reference  to  other  investigations  of 
infinitely  greater  import  carried  on  in  their  own  laboratory. 
A  statement  of  the  whole  truth  would  not  have  spoken  of 
"long-drawn  lists  of  atrocities  that  never  existed  " — deny- 
ing in  one  sweeping  sentence  some  facts  as  certain  as  any  in 


Does  Science  Need  Secrecy  ?  25 

history.  A  statement  of  the  whole  truth  would  not  have 
referred  to  "  narcotics  "  as  though  they  were  identical  with 
"anaesthetics;"  it  would  not  have  left  hidden  the  use  and 
purpose  of  curare ;  it  would  not  have  referred  to  "  open 
doors,"  when  there  are  no  open  doors;  it  would  not  have 
proclaimed  to  the  public  as  a  "priceless  discovery"  for  the 
cure  of  tenanus,  an  agent  of  which  not  five  cases  of  success- 
ful employment  in  this  country  can  be  found  in  medical 
literature.  And  above  all,  a  plain  statement  of  the  whole 
truth  would  never  have  declared  that  no  painful  vivisection 
had  been  made  in  Harvard  Medical  School  "within  our 
knowledge,"  in  the  face  of  the  evidence  I  have  given  in  this 
paper. 

I  am  not  an  anti-vivisectionist,  for  I  believe  in  the  prac- 
tice, when  it  is  rigidly  guarded  against  all  abuses,  limited 
to  useful  ends,  and  subject  to  public  criticism  and  the  super- 
vision of  the  law.  But  I  cannot  believe  that  science  ever 
advances  by  equivocation  or  gains  by  secrecy.  If,  in  the 
opinion  of  scientific  experts,  certain  phases  of  vivisection 
must  be  kept  from  the  world's  judgment  and  criticism  by 
evasion  and  suppression  of  truth,  then  I  fear  the  time  may 
come  when  society  will  question  the  expediency  of  all  such 
methods,  from  higher  considerations  than  those  that  affect 
man's  relations  to  the  animal  world.  For  science  can  exist 
without  more  vivisection  ;  but  there  are  some  things  without 
which  society  itself  cannot  exist. 


Many  readers  of  the  preceding  pages  may  wish  to  know  pre- 
cisely what  the  Harvard  professors  affirmed.  Their  manifesto 
is  therefore  reprinted  in  full.  It  will  be  of  advantage  to  com- 
pare it  with  the  views  of  a  man  far  more  eminent  in  the  medi- 
cal profession  than  any  of  them,  and  for  many  years  comiected 
with  the  same  Harvard  Medical  School.  A  n  extract  from  the 
address  delivered  before  the  Massachusetts  Medical  Soci- 
ety by  Dr.  Henry  J.  Bigelow,  late  Professor  of  Surgery  in 
that  institution  is  therefore  added. 


(From  the  Boston  Evening  Transcript.,  July  jj,  iSgj.) 


CONCERNING    VIVISECTION. 

BY 

WILLIAM    TOWNSEND    PORTER,    M.  D. 

Ass't  Professor  of  Physiology,  Harvard  Medical  School. 


[The  following  statement  is  made  at  the  suggestion  of  Dr. 
H.  P.  Bowditch,  Dr.  \V.  T.  Councilman,  Dr.  W.  F.  Whitney,  Dr. 
C.  S.  Minot  and  Dr.  H.  C.  Ernst,  professors  in  the  Harvard 
Medical  School,  in  answer  to  many  requests  for  information 
with  regard  to  experimentation  on  living  animals.] 

Readers  of  the  daily  prints  are  aware  that  a  few  misinformed 
individuals  are  making  a  persistent  effort  to  bring  about  a  popular 
agitation  against  the  experimentation  on  living  animals.  The 
newspaper  letters  and  other  communications  put  forth  by  these 
persons  dispute  the  necessity  of  vivisection,  affirming  that  the 
knowledge  secured  by  this  means  is  not  essential  to  the  progress 
of  biology,  and  therefore  without  substantial  value  for  medicine, 
a  department  of  general  biology  on  which  the  public  welfare  and 
the  happiness  and  prosperity  of  every  citizen  depend. 

It  is  charged  that  experimental  studies  of  the  functions  of 
living  animals  have  no  purpose  save  the  gratification  of  an  ignoble 
ambition,  or  the  satisfaction  of  an  idle  and  vicious  curiosity.*  It 
is  asserted  that  living  animals,  without  7iarcotics,  helpless  under 
the  control  of  poisons  which,  it  is  alleged,  destroy  the  power  to 
move  while  increasing  the  power  to  suffer,  are  subjected  to  long, 
agonizing  operations  in  the  hope  of  securing  some  new  fact,  inter- 
esting to  the  scientific  mind  but  without  practical  value.  The 
cruelties  practiced  by  vivisectors  are  paraded  in  long  lists,  with  the 
assurance  that  they  are  taken  directly  from  the  published  writings 
of  the  vivisectors  themselves,  and  distressing  pictures  are  drawn 
of  the  work  of  eminent  professors  in  great  universities.     In  short, 

*  Not  all,  but  some.    In  an  address  delivered  before  the  American  Academy  of  Medi- 
cine in  1S96,  Dr.  Gould,  (the  present  editor  of  the  Philadelphia  Medical  Journal,) 
admitted  that  "  the  greatest  harm  is  done  true  Science  by  men  who  conduct  experiments 
.     .     .    only  in  the  interest  of  vanity."    To  whom  did  Dr.  Gould  refer?    It  would  be 

interesting  to  know. 


28  Does  Science  Need  Secrecy  ? 

an  organized  effort  is  making  to  persuade  the  uninformed  that 
men  who  spend  their  lives  in  laying  the  broad  and  deep  founda- 
tions on  which  alone  a  rational  medicine  can  rest  are  wanting  in 
common  humanity,  and  that  the  medical  profession,  whose  work 
it  is  to  lessen  the  suffering  in  the  world,  looks  with  indifference  on 
useless  and  truly  revolting  cruelties  done  before  its  very  eyes* 

It  is  true  that  the  evident  exaggeration  of  these  charges  will 
alone  discredit  them  with  many  who  have  no  special  knowledge  of 
the  procedures  so  fiercely  attacked,  and  who  therefore,  cannot 
percive  that  the  weapons  of  these  agitators  are  garbled  facts,  downright 
perversions,  and  misleading  excerpts  from  professional  writings 
beyond  the  comprehension  of  the  untrained.  It  is  true  that  the 
public  mind  will  hardly  be  persuaded  that  teachers  in  medicine 
have  less  mercy  towards  dumb  animals  than  men  of  other  callings. 
And  yet  these  reiterated  charges  of  cruelty,  these  long  lists  of  atro- 
cities that  never  existed,  these  loud  outcries  to  put  an  end  to  the 
frightful  scenes  daily  enacted  within,  the  open  doors  of  the  most  en- 
lightened seats  of  learning,  absurd  though  they  be,  do  positive 
harm.  The  least  of  the  evil  that  they  publicly  attack  the  char- 
acter of  investigators  and  teachers  in  the  medical  profession  ;  the 
greatest,  that  they  seek  to  destroy  the  freedom  of  learning,  and 
to  make  impossible  that  patient  search  for  fundamental  truths 
which  has  raised  medicines  from  the  slough  of  empiricism  to  the 
level  of  an  applied  science.  It  is  the  duty  of  medical  men  to 
meet  these  mischievous   attacks  by  a  plain    statement  of  the 

WHOLE  TRUTH. 

Experiments  on  living  animals  may  be  divided  into  three 
classes.  In  the  first  class  may  be  placed  those  experiments  in 
which  the  animal  is  narcotized  before  the  operation  is  begun  and 
is  killed  while  still  insensible  to  pain.  This  class  includes  almost 
all  vivisections  in  physiology,  i.  e.,  almost  all  experiments  which 
determine  directly  the  functions  of  living  organs,  and  almost  all 
pharmacological  experiments,  those  which  determine  the  action 
of  remedies  on  living  organs.  An  example  is  the  cutting  of  the 
pneumogastric  nerve  in  the  rabbit,  fully  narcotized  with  choral, 
in  order  that  the  action  of  this  nerve  upon  the  respiration  may  be 
studied. 

*The  italics  in  this  paper  are  not  in  the  original.  They  are  herein  employed  not  for 
emphasis,  but  merely  to  indicate  certain  affirmations  and  suggestions  which  are  inaccurate 
or  untrue,  and  to  which  the  especial  attention  of  the  reader  is  directed. 


Does  Science  Need  Secrecy  f  29 

The  second  class  consists  of  experiments  in  which  the  ope- 
ration is  made  during  full  unconsciousness  and  the  animal  then 
allowed  to  recover.  The  following  illustrations  will  make  plain 
the  purpose  of  such  work.  In  a  narcotized  dog  an  opening  is 
made  through  the  abdominal  walls  into  the  stomach  and  a  short 
silver  tube  inserted.  The  narcotic  is  stopped.  In  a  few  days  the 
wound  heals  completely.  The  pain  of  the  wound  is  usually  so 
slight  that  even  the  appetite  of  the  dog  is  not  affected.  Very 
exceptionally  the  wound  takes  an  unfavorable  course.  In  such 
cases,  the  dog,  if  seen  to  be  suffering,  is  killed.  This  opening 
into  the  stomach  enables  the  physiologist  to  determine  with  much 
accuracy  the  digestibility  of  foods,  the  nature  and  the  amount  of 
absorption  from  the  stomach,  the  length  of  time  that  food  remains 
in  this  organ,  the  effect  of  remedies  upon  its  functions,  and  many 
other  matters  of  the  first  importance.  A  second  illustration  is 
found  in  the  experiments  of  the  pathologist.  A  narcotized  rab- 
bit is  inoculated  with  the  virus  of  hydrophobia  and  the  symptoms 
of  the  disease  thus  induced  are  carefully  noted.  The  knowledge 
thus  secured  enables  the  pathologist  to  decide  whether  a  dog 
which  has  been  killed  after  biting  several  persons  in  a  paroxysm 
of  supposed  madness  was  really  rabid.  If  the  dog  was  mad  indeed, 
the  inoculation  of  an  animal  with  a  small  portion  of  the  dog's 
spinal  cord  brings  on  the  previously  determined  characteristic 
symptoms  of  the  disease.  The  fact  of  rabies  is  thus  made  cer- 
tain, and  there  is  still  time,  so  slowly  does  the  rabies  develop  in 
the  human  species,  to  save  the  lives  of  the  bitten  persons  by  in- 
oculation with  the  attenuated  virus.  Yet  another  illustration. 
The  bacteriologist  makes  a  scratch  in  the  tail  of  an  etherized  mouse, 
touches  the  scratch  with  a  wire  covered  with  the  germs  of  tetanus 
(lockjaw),  and  learns  the  course  of  the  disease  in  this  animal.  He 
then  endeavors,  by  the  injection  of  various  substances,  to  arrest 
the  fatal  march  of  the  disease.  It  was  in  this  way  that  the  price- 
less discovery  was  made  which  has  at  length  banished  tetanus  from 
the  list  of  incurable  disorders. 

The  third  class  of  vivisections  is  that  in  which  no  narcotic  is 
given.  Many  operations  require  no  anaesthetic  because  they  inflict 
little  or  no  pain.  An  example  is  the  injection  of  diphtheria  toxine 
into  horses,  in  order  that  the  serum  of  their  blood  may  be  used  to 
destroy  the  diphtheria  bacillus  in    the    very    tissues   of  the    sick. 


30  Does  Science  Need  Secrecy  ? 

Other  operations  of  this  class  do  cause  pain.  Painful  vivisections, 
when  made  at  all,  are  made  for  the  sake  of  determining  functions 
that  are  temporarily  suspended  by  narcotics.1  Here  truth  is  gained 
at  the  expense  of  suffering  because  there  is  no  other  way.  Such 
i?ivestigations  are  rare.  None  stick  have  been  made  in  the  Harvard 
Medical  School  within  our  knowledge.  We  cannot  believe  that  such 
inquiries  are  ever  undertaken  in  any  university  without  the  most 
careful  consideration  of  their  probable  value  and  the  conviction 
that  the  benefit  to  humanity  will  far  outweigh  whatever  suffering 
they  may  cause  to  the  animals  employed. 

It  is  asserted  that  vivisection  is  not  necessary.  This  we  deny. 
Vivisection  is  the  unavoidable  consequence  of  two  incontrovert- 
ible propositions  :  the  first,  that  there  can  be  no  adequate  knowl- 
edge of  the  whole  without  adequate  knowledge  of  the  parts  which 
compose  the  whole ;  the  second,  that  the  functions  of  the  complex 
organs  which  compose  the  nigher  vertebrate,  cannot  be  clearly 
made  out  by  the  study  of  dead  organs  or  by  the  observation  of 
the  non-vivisected  animal.  It  would  be  easier  to  create  the  sci- 
ence of  strategy  from  observations  on  dead  soldiers  than  to  repro- 
duce the  present  knowledge  concerning  the  circulation  of  the 
blood  from  a  study  of  the  dead  blood-vessels.  Whole  series  of 
phenomena  are  hidden  alike  from  the  student  of  lifeless  tissues 
and  from  the  outside  investigator  who  confines  himself  to  man  or 
the  non-vivisected  animal.  Thus,  the  work  done  by  every  organ 
in  the  body  depends  on  the  quantity  of  blood  with  which  it  is  sup- 
plied, and  this  depends,  other  things  being  equal,  on  the  pressure 
of  the  blood  within  the  arteries.  No  means  exist  of  measuring 
accurately  the  pressure  of  the  blood  in  men  or  non-vivisected  ani- 
mals. Only  when  the  measuring  apparatus  is  connected  directly 
with  the  blood-vessels  of  the  animal  can  any  certain  knowledge 
concerning  one  of  the  most  important  factors  in  the  life  of  the 
organism  be  secured.  So  the  fundamental  problem  of  the  distri- 
bution of  the  blood  can  be  solved  only  by  vivisection. 

Instances  of  the  practical  value  of  the  knowledge  gained  by 
vivisection  are  almost  numberless.  The  discovery  of  the  restrain- 
ing action  of  the  pneumogastric  nerve  upon  the  heart  disclosed  a 
previously  unsuspected  attribute  of  nervous  tissue,  threw  a  search- 
ing light  far  into  the  gloom  that  still  enshrouds  the  higher  functions 
of  the  brain,  and  left  an  ineffaceable  mark  on  practical  medicine. 
This  discovery  was  solely  the  fruit  of  vivisection.     It  is  now  but 


Does  Science  Need  Secrecy  ?  31 

twenty-five  years  since  the  physiologist  Hitzig  stimulated  certain 
areas  on  the  exposed  brain  of  a  narcotized  dog  and  observed  that 
each  stimulus  caused  a  particular  group  of  muscles  to  contract. 
This  experiment  has  given  a  mighty  impulse  to  the  diagnosis  of 
cerebral  disease,  has  opened  the  almost  superstitiously  dreaded 
brain  to  the  surgeon's  knife,  and  has  rescued  many  who  once 
were  thought  beyond  the  reach  of  art.* 

It  is  not  to  be  disputed  that  the  certain  cure  of  any  sick  man 
depends  on  the  accurate  determination  of  his  disease.2  It  cannot  be 
denied  that  a  clear  conception  of  the  normal  functions  of  a  part  is 
the  necessary  basis  for  the  recognition  of  the  abnormality  of 
which  constitutes  disease.  It  follows  that  the  cure  of  disease 
must  be  founded  on  the  knowledge  of  the  normal  functions  of  the 
body.  It  has  been  pointed  out  that  this  knowledge  has  been 
gained  and  must  continue  to  be  gained  largely  from  experiments 
on  living  animals.  Vivisection  is  therefore  an  indispensable  aid 
to  the  practice  of  medicine  and  the  progress  of  medical  science, 
and  an  indispensable  agent  in  the  preservation  of  the  public 
health. 

Cruelty  is  the  intentional  infliction  of  unnecessary  pain.3  By 
far  the  greater  number  of  vivisections  cause  no  real  suffering,  be- 
cause the  animals  employed  are  made  insensible  to  pain.  The 
occasional  vivisections  in  which  narcotics  are  not  used  because 
they  temporarily  suspend  the  functions  to  be  studied  are  not 
cruel.  The  pain  they  inflict  is  necessary  to  the  better  knowledge 
of  the  functions  of  the  body  and  necessary  therefore  to  the  better 
preservation  of  the  lives  of  men  and  of  domestic  animals.  Count- 
less multitudes  of  animals  are  slaughtered  daily,  without  narcotics, 
to  furnish  food.  This  is  not  thought  cruel.  Other  animals  are 
mercilessly  hunted  down  because  their  furs  keep  off  the  cold.  Even 
this  is  not  thought  cruel.  Yet  the  professional  scientist,  highly 
educated,  carefully  trained,  laboring  with  small  material  reward 
for  the  advancement  of  learning  and  public  good,    is  held    up    to 


*The  reader  should  not  fail  to  note  the  intentional  indefinileness  of  the  fine-sounding; 
phrases  employed  in  this  paragraph :  "given  a  mighty  impulse;"  "threw  a  searching 
light  far  into  the  gloom,"  and  "  lelt  an  ineffaceable  mark  on  practical  medicine."  These 
phrases  have  no  meaning  except  to  suggest  achievements  in  practical  medicine  that  can- 
not be  more  clearly  defined  because  they  have  no  existence.  In  an  address  made  before 
The  New  York  State  Medical  Society,  Jan.  29,  1S96,  Dr.  M.  Allen  Starr  gave  the  statis- 
tics of  operations  for  brain  tumor  so  far  as  recorded  up  to  that  year.  He  pointed  out 
that  only  about  one  case  in  fourteen  is  open  to  operation;  and  with  the  final  result  of 
operations  for  the  cure  of  epilepsy,  about  which  we  heard  so  much  a  short  time  ago, 
he  is  "exceedingly  disappointed." 


32  Does  Science  Need  Secrecy  ? 

public  condemnation,  because,  in  the  pursuit  of  those  truths  which 
underlie  the  successful  fight  against  disease,  he  finds  it  necessary 
to  study  the  functions  of  unconscious  animals  and  very,  very 
rarely  to  perform  operations  in  which  suffering  cannot  wholly  be 
avoided. 

The  statutes  of  the  Commonwealth  prescribe  the  penalties  to 
be  inflicted  on  those  found  guilty  of  cruelty  to  animals,  and  on 
those  who  seek  to  disturb  their  fellow-citizens  in  the  pursuit  of 
their  lawful  occupations.  The  physiologist  and  the  pathologist 
take  their  stand  within  the  common  law,  ready  at  any  time  to  sub- 
mit to  the  impartial  verdict  of  competent  judges  the  method  by 
which  they  endeavor  to  teach  and  to  advance  the  science  and  the 
art  of  medicine. 

Boston,  July  12,  1S95. 


FROM   ADDRESS   ON    "MEDICAL  EDUCATION  IN  AMERICA, 

READ    BEFORE 

The  Massachusetts  Medical  Society, 


Prof.  HENRY  J.  BIGELOW,  M.  D., 

(PROFESSOR  OF  SURGERY  IN  HARVARD  UNIVERSITY.) 

"  How  few  facts  of  immediate  considerable  value  to  our  race 
have  of  late  years  been  extorted  from  the  dreadful  sufferings 
of  dumb  animals,  the  cold-blooded  cruelties  now  more  and  more  prac- 
ticed under  the  authority  of  science  !  * 

The  horrors  of  Vivisection  have  supplanted  the  solemnity, 
the  thrilling  fascination,  of  the  old  unetherized  operation  upon 
the  human  sufferer.  Their  recorded  phenomena,  stored  away  by 
the  physiological  inquisitor  on  dusty  shelves,  are  mostly  of  as  little 
present  value  to  man  as  the  knowledge  of  a  new  comet  or  of  a 
Tungstate    of  Zirconium  :     perhaps    to   be    confuted    next    year ; 


Does  Science  Need  Secrecy  ?  33 

perhaps  to  remain  as  fixed  truth  of  immediate  value,  —  contempti- 
ble, compared  with  the  price  paid  for  it  in  agony  and  torture. 

For  every  inch  cut  by  one  of  these  experimenters  in  the 
quivering  tissues  of  the  helpless  clog  or  rabbit  or  Guinea-pig,  let 
him  insert  a  lancet  one-eighth  of  an  inch  into  his  own  skin,  and  for 
every  inch  more  he  cuts  let  him  advance  the  lancet  another  eighth 
of  an  inch,  and  whenever  he  seizes,  with  ragged  forceps,  a  nerve 
or  spinal  marrow,  the  seat  of  all  that  is  concentrated  and  exquis- 
ite in  agony,  or  literally  tears  out  nerves  by  their  roots*  let  him 
cut  only  one-eighth  of  an  inch  further,  and  he  may  have  some 
faint  suggestion  of  the  atrocity  he  is  perpetrating  when  the 
Guinea-pig  shrieks,  the  poor  dog  yells,  the  noble  horse  groans  and 
strains  —  the  heartless  vivisector  perhaps  resenting  the  struggle 
which  annoys  him. 

My  heart  sickens  as  I  recall  the  spectacle  at  Alfort,  in  former 
times,  of  a  wretched  horse,  one  of  many  hundreds,  broken  with 
age  and  disease  resulting  from  lifelong  and  honest  devotion  to 
man's  service,  bound  upon  the  floor,  his  skin  scored  with  a  knife 
like  a  gridiron,  his  eyes  and  ears  cut  out,  his  teeth  pulled,  his 
arteries  laid  bare,  his  nerves  exposed  and  pinched  and  severed, 
his  hoofs  pared  to  the  quick,  and  every  conceivable  and  fiendish 
torture  inflicted  upon  him,  while  he  groaned  and  gasped,  his  life 
carefully  preserved  under  this  continued  and  hellish  torment  from 
early  morning  until  afternoon  for  the  purpose,  as  was  avowed,  of 
familiarizing  the  pupil  with  the  motions  of  the  animal.  This  was 
surgical  vivisection  on  a  little  larger  scale,  and  transcends  but 
little  the  scenes  in  a  physiological  laboratory,  I  have  heard  it 
said  that  '  somebody  must  do  this.'  I  say,  it  is  needless.  Nobody 
should  do  it.  Watch  the  students  at  a  vivisection.  It  is  the 
blood  and  suffering,  not  the  science,  that  rivets  their  breathless 
attention.  If  hospital  service  makes  young  students  less  tender 
of  suffering,  vivisection  deadens  their  humanity  and  begets  indif- 
ference to  it. 

In  experiments  upon  the  nervous  system  of  the  living  animal, 
whose  sensibility  must  be  kept  alive,  not  benumbed  by  the  blessed 
influence  of  anaesthesia,  a  prodigal  waste  of  suffering  results  from, 
the  difficulty  of  assigning  to  each  experiment  its  precise  and 
proximate  effect.     The  rumpled  feathers  of  a  pigeon  deprived  of 

*  For  illustrations  of  this  phase  of  vivisection,  see  experiments  of  Prof.  Porter  of  the 
Harvard  Medical  School,  referred  to  in  this  pamphlet,  at  foot  of  page  21. 
3 


34  Does  Science  Need  Secrecy  ? 

his  cerebellum  may  indicate  not  so  much  a  specific  action  of  the 
cerebellum  on  the  skin,  as  the  more  probable  fact  that  the  poor 
bird  feels  sick.  The  rotatory  phenomena,  once  considered  so 
curious  a  result  of  the  removal  of  a  cerebral  lobe,  were  afterward 
suspected  to  proceed  from  the  struggles  of  the  victim  with  his 
remaining  undamaged  and  unpalsied  side.  Who  can  say  whether 
a  Guinea-pig,  the  pinching  of  whose  carefully  sensitized  neck 
throws  him  into  convulsions,  attains  this  blessed  momentary 
respite  of  insensibility  by  an  unexplained  special  machinery  of 
the  nervous  currents,  or  a  sensibility  too  exquisitely  acute  for 
animal  endurance  ?  Better  that  I  or  my  friend  should  die  than 
protract  existence  through  accumulated  years  of  torture  upon 
animals  whose  exquisite  suffering  we  cannot  fail  to  infer,  even 
though  they  may  have  neither  voice  nor  feature  to  express  it. 

If  a  skillfully  constructed  hypothesis  could  be  elaborated  up 
to  the  point  of  experimental  test  by  the  most  accomplished  and 
successful  philosopher,  and  if  then  a  single  experiment,  though 
cruel,  would  forever  settle  it,  we  might  reluctantly  admit  that  it 
was  justified.  But  the  instincts  of  our  common  humanity  indig- 
nantly remonstrate  against  the  testing  of  clumsy  or  unimportant 
hypotheses  by  prodigal  experimentation,  or  making  the  torture  of 
animals  an  exhibition  to  enlarge  a  Medical  School,  or  for  the  en- 
tertainment of  students,  not  one  in  fifty  of  whom  can  turn  it  to 
any  profitable  account.  The  limit  of  such  physiological  experi- 
ment, in  its  utmost  latitude,  should  be  to  establish  truth  in  the 
hands  of  a  skillful  experimenter,  with  the  greatest  economy  of 
suffering,  and  not  to  demonstrate  it  to  ignorant  classes  and  encour- 
age them  to  repeat  it. 

The  reaction  which  follows  every  excess  will  in  time  bear 
indignantly  upon  this.  Until  then  it  is  dreadful  to  think  how 
many  poor  animals  will  be  subjected  to  excruciating  agony  as  one 
Medical  College  after  another  becomes  penetrated  with  the  idea 
that  vivisection  is  a  part  of  modern  teaching,  and  that,  to  hold 
way  with  other  institutions,  they,  too,  must  have  their  vivisector, 
their  mutilated  dogs,  their  Guinea-pigs,  their  rabbits,  their  chamber 
of  torture  and  of  horrors,  to  advertise  as  a  laboratory." — From 
address  before  Massachusetts  Medical  Society,  June  7,  187 1. 


Does  Science  Need  Secrecy  ?  35 


Notes  and  Comments. 

1  p.  28.  There  is  a  class  of  experiments,  sometimes  involving  extreme 
and  prolonged  pain,  all  mention  of  which  this  "  statement  of  the  whole 
truth "  carefully  avoids.  At  the  meeting  of  the  British  Medical 
Association  held  in  August,  1899,  the  president  of  the  Section  of  State 
Medicine,  Dr.  George  Wilson,  LL.  D.,  made  the  following  scathing 
allusion  to  the  efforts  of  vivisectors  to  conceal  the  truth  : 

"I  boldly  say  there  should  be  some  pause  in  these  ruthless  lines  of  ex- 
perimentation. ...  I  have  not  allied  myself  to  the  Anti-vivisection- 
ists,  but  I  accuse  my  profession  of  misleading  the  public  an  to  the  cruelties 
and  horrors  ivhich  are  perpetrated  on  animal  life.  When  it  is  stated 
that  the  actual  pain  involved  in  these  experiments  is  commonly  of  the 
most  trifling  description,  there  is  a  suppression  of  the  truth,  of  the 
most  palpable  hind,  which  could  only  be  accounted  for  at  the  time  by 
ignorance  of  the  actual  facts.  I  admit  that  in  the  mere  operation  of 
injecting  a  virus,  whether  cultivated  or  not,  there  may  be  little  or  no 
pain,  but  the  cruelty  does  not  lie  in  the  operation  itself,  which  is  per- 
mitted to  be  performed  without  anaesthetics,  but  in  the  after-effects 
Whether  so-called  toxins  are  injected  under  the  shin  into  the  peritotieum, 
into  the  cranium,  tinder  the  dura  mater,  into  the  pleural  cavity,  into  the 
veins,  eves,  or  other  organs  —  a?id  all  these  methods  are  ruthlessly  prac- 
ticed—  there  is  long-drawn-out  agony.  The  animal  so  innocently  ope- 
rated on  may  have  to  live  days,  -weeks,  or  months,  -with  no  ancesthetic  to 
assuage  its  sufferings,  and  ?ioihing  but  death  to  relieve." 

2  p.  29.  "The  certain  cure  of  any  sick  man  "  has  most  assuredly  never 
been  gained  through  vivisection.  For,  aside  from  a  few  simple  disorders, 
chiefly  cutaneous,  there  are  no  "  certain  cures  "  known  to  medical  science 
Sir  John  Forbes,  formerly  Physician  to  the  Queen,  asserts  :  "In  the  vast 
majority  of  diseases  the  medical  art,  even  when  exerting  its  powers  most 
successfully,  can  hardly  be  said  to  cure  diseases  at  all."  ("  Nature  and 
Art  in  the  Cure  of  Disease."  See  also  "  Modern  Inquiries,"  by  Dr 
Jacob  Bigelovv,  formerly  a  professor  in  Harvard  University.) 

8  p.  29.  Cruelty  is  the  intentional  infliction  of  unjustifiable  pain.  To 
accept  the  vivisectors'  definition  is  to  open  the  door  to  every  infamy 
that  they  declare  "  necessary  "  Nothing  can  be  necessary  that  is  ethically 
unjustifiable 


Literature   Concerning  Vivisection. 


Medical  Opinions  concerning  Vivisection,  per  dozen    copies,     $ 

Is  Vivisection  Painful  ?        -        -        -        -  " 

Scientific  Chicanery:     Does  it  Pay?-         -  ■' 

Confessions  of  a  Vivisector,       •  -         -         -  " 

Facts  about  Vivisection,        -  " 

State  Supervision  of  Vivisection,         -         -  " 

Dr.  Theophilus  Parvin  on  Vivisection,      -  " 

Physiology  in  our  Public  Schools,      -         -  " 

A  Dangerous  Ideal,       .         -        -        -        - 

The  Brutalization  of  Childhood,  -         .  " 

Shall  Science  Do  Murder  ?  -  " 

Opinions  concerning  Vivisection  in  Schools,      " 

Abstract  of  Report  on  Vivisection  in  America,  " 

Does  Science  Need  Secrecy?  (15th  Thousand),  " 

Report   of    American    Humane  Association    on 

Vivisection  in  America,  -  per    copy, 

Human  Vivisection,       -----  "         " 

Animals'  Rights    and   Vivisection    in   America, 

(Fifth  Thousand.),  ------  "         " 


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Address  : 


above 
eighty- 


Humane  Literature  Committee, 

P.  O.  Box    215, 
Providence,  R.  1 


HUMANE  LITERATURE. 


The  American  Humane  Association  was  organized  in  1877,  for  the 
purpose  of  promoting  unity  and  concert  of  action  among  the  American 
societies,  having  for  their  object  the  prevention  of  Cruelty  to  children 
and  animals.  For  twenty-three  years  it  has  endeavored  to  carry 
out  this  purpose,  principally  through  deliberative  conventions,  held 
annually  in  various  cities  throughout  the  Union,  and  in  Canada.  At 
the  meeting  of  the  Association  in  Washington.  D.  C,  in  December,  1S9S. 
it  was  decided  somewhat  to  enlarge  its  field  of  activity,  and  to  make 
the  Association  more  of  an  Educational  force  in  awakening  public 
sentiment  to  the  need  of  various  reforms. 

One  of  the  methods  through  which,  the  American  Humane  Associa- 
tion will  aim  to  accomplish  this  purpose  is  b}-  the  systematic  distribution 
of  Humane  Literature.  So  far  as  funds  permit,  it  proposes  to  promul- 
gate the  ideals  of  humane  conduct  in  every  direction  where  necessity 
exists.  Among  the  subjects  regarding  which  it  would  seek  more 
thoroughly  to  arouse  public  sentiment  are  the  abuses  connected  with 
the  treatment  of  domestic  animals  ;  the  transpoitation  of  cattle  and  their 
slaughter  for  food ;  the  extermination  of  birds  for  the  demands  of 
fashion;  the  cruellies  of  "sport;"  the  abuses  of  vivisection  when 
carried  on,  as  now  without  State  supervision  or  control;  the  cruelties 
pertaining  to  child-life,  and  above  all,  the  great  and  growing  abomin- 
ation of  Human  Vivisection,  in  the  subjection  of  children  and  others 
to  scientific  experimentation. 

The  extent  to  which  this  work  can  be  carried  out  will  depend  upon 
the  assistance  received.  All  interested  are  urgently  solicited  to  con- 
tribute towards  this  object.  Every  dollar  so  contributed  will  be  devoted 
wholly  to  the  publication  and  dissemination  of  Humane  Literature. 
Should  subscribers  desire  their  contributions  to  be  especially  devoted 
to  any  one  of  the  above  lines  of  this  humanitarian  work,  their  prefer- 
ences will   be  observed. 

Francis  H.  Rowley,  D.  D., 

Treas.   Humane  Literature  Committee, 
Xo.   163  Winter  Street, 

Fall  River.  Mass. 


COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY 

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